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Conquering Everest

Elizabeth Rose isn’t brave. There’s no need for bravery if you aren’t scared in the first place.

The 25-year-old Vancouverite didn’t think about the dangers of falling rocks, avalanches, whiteouts or frostbite; Rose didn’t give the possibility of death a first or second thought.

“My health was my main priority, so I wasn’t about to take crazy chances, but I tried not to think like that,” said Rose. “I knew the mountain would be there my whole life and I was okay if it took more than one try.”

And with that, she climbed Earth’s highest mountain: Mount Everest.

The two-month journey through basecamp, camps one, two and three and finally the summit, ended with Rose proudly displaying a Canadian flag and a Canucks flag.

Sitting in Trevor Linden’s office earlier this month, Rose described the treacherous expedition to the Canucks president, an avid ski mountaineer, who peppered her with questions at the same rate snow fell upon her as she descended Everest.

The climbing bug bit Rose as she made her way up Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, in 2014. She then conquered Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas, in early 2016 and along the way made friends who invited her on an excursion to Everest just a few weeks later.

Rose, having just trained for Aconcagua, was up for the challenge of a lifetime. And of course her Canucks were coming along.

If you’re anything like me, merely watching the movie Everest was enough to keep you off Everest, or any mountain, forever. Then there’s Rose, who watched it with friends four times before she left because she “wanted her friends to see what she could be going through.”

Spoiler alert – she experienced the movie and more and is now the second youngest Canadian woman to have ever climbed Everest.

“You pass dead bodies, they’re just frozen there,” said Rose. “Going up a ridgeline, about an hour from the summit, and someone is just lying there, dead. No one will move that body. It was a major buzz kill.”

Once at the summit, Rose was on top of the world, her Canucks flag by her side.

“I wanted to represent my country, my city and my team. I felt it was a fun thing to do.”

Flags are all the rage atop the summit. Prayer flags, country flags – other sports team flags?

“Absolutely not.”

And there still isn’t.

Rose brought the Canucks flag back down with her and presented it to Linden, along with two photos from the excursion, and he plans to have them framed and displayed at Rogers Arena.

What’s next for Rose?

Carabineers, rope and Canucks flags for the foreseeable future as she continues conquering the Seven Summits, the highest mountains of each of the seven continents. Three down, four to go.

She’ll be climbing Denali, North America’s tallest peak, next spring, Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe, next summer, and Vinson, the summit of Antarctica, in the fall of 2017.

That will leave her with Mount Kosciuszko in Australia and once Rose masters it, she’ll become the youngest Canadian female to do the Seven Summits.

“It’ll be a neat thing. I didn’t go into this wanting to break any records, my dad looked into this and we realized it was doable.”

Just keep climbing.

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If you’re taking the Canucks along during your adventures this summer, we’d love to know. Tag your tweets or Instagram posts with #WeAreAllCanucks to be featured on WeAreAllCanucks.com and to win some great prizes. Happy travels!